the customs was nice... they emptied all my stuff on the floor so I could kill some time by repacking my case

hmm i may hit up the AF museum in a couple of weeks, i'll be in OH

Pfft! lol.

lone male, early 20s

must be up to no good

lol

the only time i got stopped by airport security was the only time I dressed in a suit

he looked really pleased with himself until he discovered I had nothing in my case that I shouldn't have

@rfusca Last time I was there, I tried to get some pics that didn't look like "tour guide" material, but the lighting was really dismal.

yeh, museums are often awful at lighting stuff

they rarely think about the fact people might want to photograph the aircraft

hmm, stearman? waco?

P-26 "Peashooter"

lol they look insane

nvr seen one of those before

Nice colors (if nobody's shooting at you).

looks like a Ryan trainer from a kids show

A little larger.

heh

either that or something from wacky races

You can find British planes, German planes, Russian planes, even Italian planes there, but you won't find a single damned Navy plane. ;-)

whilst googling the type - i came across this site: richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Aircraft/Fighters/AmericanProps/… are any of those sharp?

ah Italian aircraft..

they had some odd looking wartime types

Nice... I'm a sucker for a P-38.

held off from Malta by 3 Gloster Gladiators :)

@DLambert look at the bigger version, they are all soft

The Aircobra is a pretty crazy plane. They've got the powertrain from one of those on display out of the plane, w/ the Allison motor in back and the cannon running down the shaft.

@JamWheel Yeah, you're right.

@DLambert yeh, weird aircraft

cannon right down the prop boss?

and the prop shaft goes under the pilot

Yeah, something like a 30mm.

weird CofG in those i think

Shells look about the same size as an A-10, but it didn't fire them at whatever ungodly speed the A-10 does (only one barrel, for starters).

heh

that's not an aircraft

:)

A display case w/ glasses -- one for each of the crew from Doolittle's Tokyo raid.

There's only like three or four that are still upright, so that bottle's going to be opened pretty soon.

ah - one for each survivor?

I'm pretty sure there's a cup for each crewman, including those who died on the mission.

Sort of a neat display if you stop and read the stuff hanging up on the walls around the airplanes.

yeh - i like the personal touch bits like that

They've got a B-25 fitted w/ the broom-handle guns & all.

Took a pair of big brass ones to climb in those planes.

they have a wall in the American hangar at Duxford, well, 2 walls, with every person that died during wwii as part of the mighty 8th

there were a lot of feats done during the war which I think are unrepeatable... that generation was made of different stuff to people now

Wow -- that's got to be amazing. There are some phenomenal photos of shot-up planes on the wall, too -- some that made it, and some that didn't.

it is a lot of names

really drives home just how many their were

Yeah, it's got to be pretty sobering.

anyone heard of a RAW editor called Capture One Express?

yes

any good?

The best part about that museum is the people you'll run into there. Almost all the volunteers are ex-USAF, and just about every time we go there, we run into some vets that are happy to strike up a conversation.

@DLambert I went for a taxy ride in a Lancaster too - they told some awful tales of things that happened... some incredible losses were incurred in bomber command

@ElendilTheTall absolutely no idea I am afraid

My son and I were milling around Bockscar a couple years ago, and a guy rolled up in a wheelchair and started talking about ferrying B-29's out to the theater.

Free license with Digital Photographer magazine

gotta be better than a 6 year old version of ACR

@DLambert always interesting to talk to the vets - they have some incredible stories

@ElendilTheTall if it is free you don't have anything but time to lose

@JamWheel Yeah, it's a real privilege.

i have met a Battle of France pilot

and a few other british vets

such wonderful people - the things they gave for us

and without thought of thanks for the most part

just did what they had to do

Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

nowadays people would be expecting compensation

yup

exactly, they just got on with it, no questions asked

And to think, all they sacrificed and I still only get 40kbs download speed

some of the stories I read about special forces ops... people told "You almost certainly aren't going to live through this, anyone can back out of they like" and everyone still goes... incredible

might as well be in a POW camp

lol

paddling in canoes from open sea off a sub to blow up boats - amazing

my grandad was at Dunkirk, then liberated the Japanese POW camps in Java

not singlehandedly of course

lol

Got himself a wife out of the deal though!

The Dambusters raid fascinates me

Remake of the film is in the works

seriously hard going that must have been

yeah i know....

hope they do it justice

As long as they keep the music

stephen fry has been heavily involved in the script so I should imagine he would be a good champion for keeping it as faithful as possible

You ever seen (modern) photos from those Pacific islands? That would be a great photo vacation. Some of those ruins are pretty fantastic.

daaaa da da da dah dah da da

Makes you want to salute :D

here is an interesting pic

what the heckins is that arch made of?!

first pic post Tsunami, bottom pic post Atom bomb

Just less surface area I would imagine

I was on a canoe trip in Canada last year, and we stopped at an old POW camp up there. Pretty interesting stuff.

It's mostly empty space

plus Japanese houses are all made of paper

No kidding!

yeh but an atom bomb?!

Can I get a Camry made out of that?

lol

meh, a crappy 1940s atom bomb

origami houses?

No, shoji paper walls

still did a fairly hefty job of blowing stuff up

specifically so they're easy to rebuild after earthquakes and tsunamis

Funny story from my grandad's war experience

He was visiting a mate in the hospital who'd been wounded

He said that there'd been a lot of commotion earlier because the nurses could smell rotting, so they'd checked everyone for infections

no dice

amazing how random buildings survive a blast like that vitalinfo.org/3.193_hiroshima-aftermath.jpg

@ElendilTheTall "My house keeps getting knocked down by earthquakes & tsunamis, so I'll make my house easy to rebuild"? Maybe it's just me, but by the third or fourth time that happened to me, I think I'd consider moving...

Eventually they found, under the bed of a Gurkha at the end of the ward, the head of the last guy he'd killed in a bag

@ElendilTheTall hah - Ghurkas.... mental

@DLambert well, your house will get knocked down whatever its made of, so it's better for it to be made out of paper than bricks

I'd rather have a few bits of wood and paper fall on me than a fricking breeze block

@JamWheel apparently the preferred technique is to jam the khukri into the guts, forcing the enemy to double over, then to whip it out and <swish> the head off.

like shellin' peas

nice

i have a couple of Khukris

useful for getting the best position at airshows?

yeh, lol... or dealing with people that bring step ladders

so, who wants to buy me a flashgun?

come on, don't be shy

@ElendilTheTall the checks in the mail ;)

I can guarantee absolutely no return on your invest

ment

well, at least its a guarantee

@rfusca you're just angling to get it once I'm dead

like buying your wife a set of golf clubs

'oh, you won't use them? I guess I could...'

my dad did that once with an electric kitchen knife

big mistake

@ElendilTheTall ya, but at this rate your last dying breathe is going for the world record

I have the lungs of a sherpa

he wasn't using them

waste not

<whistles>

what's everyone got going on today?

work

:(

stupid multi-million dollar project

what do you do?

You've probably said b4 but I can't recall

one sec